High Weirdness From Memphis:

Not so good character Ta-Gar from Memphis' USWA territory uses the intro to Ozzy's "Journey to the Center of Eternity" mixed with weird bluescreen effects and volcanic imagery.

                                  

   

 Next up is the crazy Southern Heavyweight champ Eric Embury fresh off his run in Texas' World Class (which merged with some of the Memphis territory in the USWA circa: the early 90s). Here Embry promos in near Death Metal style with "graves dug up...bodies dismembered" and then shows a clip from the classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is turn promotes the Leatherface angle.

      

This Leatherface was a part of the short-lived tag-team with Ta-Gar (who was only in the territory for a few weeks). Ta-Gar, Leatherface and Embry also had Tojo Yamamoto (who was a legendary heel in Memphis), Judge Dredd (!?). Say what you will about "fixed", "fake" and "scripted" but a guy with a chainsaw running loose in a closed-in TV studio is doesn't have a happy ending. Hell, I should know I saw Stan "The Lariat" Hansen whup a bullrope only feet a away from my head at the Henry J. Kaiser in Oakland (June 1986). The dude was big & way scary and you DON'T fuck around with someone who was once tag champs with Bruiser Brody.

Getting back to the rock connection with all of this - we find Leatherface's FMW aka: Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (Japan) federation theme which sounds very mid-period Megadeth to me - very riffy & heavy Oops - just discovered this is done by Bay Area metallers, Laaz Rockit.I wasn't much into them but this song's defo. one of their best. However, this appears to be cover with minimal lyrics with only the chorus in English. 

Anyway, I DO agree with one of the commentators the Ta-Gar clip. The worst of USWA angle or character is 1000x better than the some of the best stuff McMahon's WWE has come up with. Yeah, John Cena can wrestle but ideally, his character should have less heat than the Mulkey Brothers.

Lighting Beat-Man will suicida plancha your fake-garage rock ass!

I recently finished reading Eric Davidson (vocalist of the excellent garage-punkers, New Bomb Turks) great book We Never Learn - The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001  While the book is quite thorough with both the underground and overground of late 80's/1990's garage rock/lo-fi rock/whatever you call it, it's missing the wild and crazy lucha libre/Z-movie inspired Swiss weirdo, Lightning Beat-Man. Admittedly I've not heard a ton of LBM but I did read about him a bit in Maximum Rock n' Roll. He also has the right aesthetic for this here blog, if you wheel.* Here's a dirty 'lil number with some hazy stop motion lucha action. Think of it like a squared circle rudimentary rock version of a Ray Harryhausen film. Lyrically, it comes across like an even more stripped down & even more ridiculous version of the Dwarves but this ain't exactly a post-modern essay on fucking Radiohead!

 Now here's Lighting Beat-Man interviewing his inspiration, the Wild Man of West Virginia, the late, great Hasil Adkins.

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Here's what some of his records look like. Gotta love the slogan "The No Hit Wonder"

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Loads more info here: http://www.voodoorhythm.com/LBM.html

* Say just like "The American Dream". ** A plancha (suicida) looks like this.

Music Library Intro Themes

I just discovered this going 'round YouTube looking for more ring intros. Turns out Japan - particularlity the New Japan and All Japan Pro Wrestling has TONS of "music library" created themes. What I'd like to know is who the hell are the musicians that make this stuff 'cause as you'll see/hear a lot of this is really interesting and often quite good!

We start with this very riffy, rather solid metallic number that would be far from fitting on say a Jag Panzer record. It's current WWE grappler Evan Borne (who I seem to always mix up with Maniac Matt Borne who was the original Doink the Clown, however they're not related).

This concept was used in Japan but in an even more wilder and interesting way. Would would've thought that the insanely incredible duo of Stan "The Lariet" Hansen and Bruiser Brody would work with John Barry meets Issac Hayes workout of below? (Yes, I KNOW these are 2 covers of Fred Zep).

The "1997 NWO Wolfpack Sting meets 1985 Road Warriors (and a wee bit of Great Muta's) look from a grappler just called Hate (no relation to KPFA DJ Mr. Hate or the Polish Death Metal band) somehows mushes up mid-paced techno, electro-funk and some kinda Joe Satriani-ish shed guitar and somehow manages to make it work.

Back to Heavy Metal/Hard Rock, Billy Ken Kid's theme sounds really close to an instrumental that easily would've found it's way on a Dokken album or B-side. I mean this with respect as I friggin' like them for the most part and George Lynch's playing is actually quite good (albeit not someone I listen to a great deal these days).

If you'd like some cheese then check out Masahiro Chono's New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) theme totally sounds like anything from Rhapsody of Fire (or really 99.9% of from their goofy label Limb Music). 

                                

Regardless of what you think, these themes are a LOT more interesting than a lot of the drek that WCW and WWE/F came up with over the years (save HHH's "The Game" 'cause that's by Motörhead  - hence, it's unfuckwithable).

Indie Rock and (sometimes) Indy Wrestling

Bryan Danielson who's one of the few actually interesting current-era grapplers in demonstrates a move I've never even heard of - the Guillotine. While that name is Metal as fuck - what follows in the 2nd part is a song by the Kimya Dawson-led band Antsy Pants. While I'm not a huge fan of Dawson's music it is an undeniably catchy tune and there's some at least interesting stuff going on in the song. Far more than I can say for much of what's supposed to be "indie rock" these days (bands with shitty names such as STRFKR and HTRK neither of whom I'd suspect are from the former Yugoslavia). 


Danielson like Dawson has worked with both the big time (WWE), the middle circut (Ring of Honor) and the indie federations (Chikara, Dragon Gate USA, and the current version of IWA). Dawson, as many know   was on the Juno soundtrack and has played everywhere from 924 Gilman to arenas and even collaborated with Turd Eye Bland. 

Another interesting 'lil bit is Bryan's K Records shirt 'round 3:38. K Records being the label for Dawson, Beat Happening, Tiger Trap and Jeremy Jay. While none of these are at the wrestler-rockin' level of AntiSeen they are all fine artists. And they sure beat dealing with a happy-go-lucky power-pop band called Let's Wrestle - who don't exactly make me wanna dream about fighting alongside Kevin "Prince of Darkness" Sullivan in some bizzaro world version of early 80's Florida.   If you wanna learn more of these type of grappling techniques then go here.

UWF-Mid South footage with plenty o' rockin' tunes

Clockwise: Sting, unknown, Missy Hyatt, John Tatum, Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert and Rick Steiner. AKA: World's Worst 70's Disco-Glam tribute act.

There was something truly great about the short-lived UWF which was in its earlier incarnation, the Mid-South promotion run by Cowboy Bill Watts. This like many Southern promotions, I had only previously read about in the 'ol Apter mags. However, my first trip to Las Vegas in Summer '87 I discovered the UWF (which debuted a year earlier) and hence an entirely new wrestle-verse from my then friend & bandmate, Tom. Tom introduced me to the UWF's cable show "Power Pro Wrestling" which we later got in the Bay Area on Saturday nights on San Jose's independent channel, Channel 36.

The UWF was Watts way to draw in some of the talent he already had an could mix in with current elements of NWA territories past & present: Memphis, Los Angeles, Florida, Mid-Atlantic, World Class, etc. This meant names that would later make for some major and minor but still classic angles in the latter part of the 80's into the early-mid 90s: WCW and WWF: Terry Taylor, Ted DiBase, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Junkyard Dog (who I Hacksaw Butch Reed, Jim "Hacksaw" Duggan, Terry Taylor, Eddie Gilbert, The Freebirds, Kamala: The Ugandan Giant, Shane Douglas, Rick Steiner, and one of my faves. Steve "Doctor Death" Williams.

This first clip has KISS' "Rock N' Roll All Night" (shortly after uh, Molly Hatchett?) that works OK but not anywhere near as well as one after (around 1:04) with their few truly great 80's songs, "War Machine" featuring Jeff Van Camp doing the oft-used gimmick Lord Humongous - which similar to Hawk and Animal was also influenced by The Road Warrior film.




Later in the clip the Midnight Rider who reps the Allman Bros. but this time surpinsgly ISN'T Dusty Rhodes but (SPOILER ALERT: Bill Watts).

Now time to get your energy dome on as UWF announcer Ressor Bowden serves up a "Good Thing" of prime mid-80's grapplin' action & DEVO. Don't forget to watch your guest seat, Reesor!



But..."don't you miss it" especially when they got beer in Texarkana


Finally, because I sometimes too much time on my hands, I also found this clip of the house comedian of the Grand Olde Opry, Jerry Clower doing a promo with the Junkyard Dog & Jim "Hacksaw" Duggan (who he calls "Doogie" or is "Dukie"?)


In summary, it's really facinating what and who made these decisions for using music in the UWF. No canned pre-made themes, just actual songs from acutal artists that are often fitting the action really well. As I'll show in upcoming posts funk, disco and electro (or really nearly proto-techno) sounds were used brilliantly for themes for the various terriories. Once again: territory system IS hardcore!

ENDNOTES: Manager Jim Cornette has some great stories about working for Watts in the Mid-South. Which you can read in his Midnight Express Scrapbook - which is VERY much worth your time and $.

Wrestling on acid or the strange story of Chris Colt

After Alice Cooper but before Turbonegro.

Even for the strange world of wrestling, Chris Colt was an odd duck, I stumbled across his name when looking for more info on the Arizona wrestling history and found this "holy shit!" photo above located on [url=http://www.cagesideseats.com/2009/08/23/in-which-we-learn-about-chris-colt/]Cageside Seats. [/url]. It may not be a big deal today but for the wrestling world in 1980-81 to mix up arena rock and '77 UK punk was something else. Wrestlers like bands have gimmicks and some go over great and others get overlooked.
Interestingly, Colt was one-half of the heel tag-team the Comarncharos who worked in Boston and Arizona. The Comancharos story line was that they were brothers but in reality they were actually a gay couple. (Wrestling was then very in closet as opposed to recent years where they've had several openly gay guys in the business. Namely WWF Hall of Famer Pat Patterson and the later Kris Kanyon).
The (yes I know, "how ironic") gay pro wrestling site goes into this further over here.

He returned to Phoenix and was fired, when on an acid trip, he freaked out during a cage bout and thought he saw giant spiders crawling up the cage. Making his escape, he headed into the crowd, swinging wildly, and starting one of the worst riots ever in Phoenix.

One of the comments says: "Good bio of Colt in the book “Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels.” FUN FACT: He took his name, Colt, from his favorite gay porno mag."

Finally, here's Colt as "Crazy Chris Colt" from the All Star Wrestling territory in Vancouver, BC. getting some good heat from the crowd in this match vs. Verne Siebert. Then Moondog Moretti cuts a nice promo: "It's gonna take a lot more than a freak and a geek". Dean Ho's mic work is eh, not so much. Also, check out his use of AC/DC's "Back in Black" before it was used 1000 of times over.



Here's Colt with his then tag-partner Sgt. Al Tomko reviewing their match with Moondog Moretti and Dean Ho. The camera go on Colt's promo @ 5:25


Final nerd note: The Hawaiian Hurricane match is the same set up as a Texas Tornado used in the World Class fed and here & there in other feds.

"True men, true men - rock n' roll never forgets."

Hulk Flag or Black Hogan?

Aesop over at Cosmic Hearse just posted this fine, fine collision created by Perry Shall.

Weighing in at (approximately 650 lbs), from Hermosa Beach, CA: BLACK FLAG and the Process of Weeding Out

and....

Weighing in at 302 lbs., from Tampa, FL: HULK HOGAN (via his audiobio book)

The two work really well and match up well together in places especially in the 3rd piece when Hogan talks about his early days of getting the hell beat out of him in the early days and he mentions the territory system which I've blogged about before. Though the truth of a few of his stories may be a work - see the 3rd review here. Like Hogan's go rounds as a heel - way back in the Georgia territory as Sterling Golden and circa: 96 in WCW) - Black Flag got a lot of heat for this release in '85 (which carried over from the year before with side 2 of My War). 

Wherever you stand on these issues - just download it here, brother.

http://cosmichearse.blogspot.com/2011/06/process-of-weeding-outbrother.html